Thursday, January 19, 2006

Memo To Dick Pound: I Told You So

Back on November 24 the voluble Dick Pound made the news when he claimed that a third of NHL players were drug cheats, and the league needed to tighten its testing and punishment system.

I argued then that a better deterrent to cheating already existed: WADA itself, which is responsible for the no-notice out-of-competition testing of players short-listed for Olympic rosters. Any decent NHL player is already on an Olympic short-list, and so subject to their rules.

Today, Columbus Blue Jacket Bryan Berard became the first NHLer to prove the system works, testing positive for 19-norandrosterone. Berard was short-listed by the U.S. squad, but failed to make the team. Nevertheless, he was tested on November 12th, and failed.

Early reports blame a supplement for the result. As pointed out here, and many places, supplements are not regulated by federal governments. They may contain pharmaceuticals, legal or illegal plant products, or beetle-dung. No one is checking, and any sports professional who relies on a manufacturer for the legality of their product is being a fool. Fools, however, are not the same as cheats.